Russian pensioner builds underground railway below his house

An elderly Russian chap has decided to make the most of his twilight years by building a massive underground railway underneath his house. He's called Leonid Mulyanchik, and has been constructing the Metro system since before the fall of the Berlin wall -- starting in 1984.

All the materials are bought with his pension, and somehow he's managed to acquire all the required permits, documents and approvals for the project to continue indefinitely. The tunnels are lined with concrete and bricks, strong enough to withstand a 60-ton truck passing overhead, and extend below neighboring houses too. It's designed to carry small trains with 3-4 passengers each.

It takes Mulyanchik about a day to extend the tunnel an extra metre, and three days more for it to be shored up with concrete walls and an arch. That's slow progress -- but with one man doing all the work, what do you expect? Future plans involve plumbing the tunnels and introducing fire hydrants to cut the risk of damage from fire, as well as CCTV and allowing neighbors to connect their own homes to the tunnel system.

There's a full rundown of the tunnel system, as well as plenty of pictures of the tunnel system, over at English Russia.